An expert on car safety knew there was something wrong with the typical lean and featureless crash-test dummy.
Trauma surgeon Stewart Wang, M.D., director of the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine, told car safety engineers years ago the "dummies look nothing like my patients."
"The condition, size and shape of an individual is hugely important in how severe their injuries are in any given crash," Wang told Michigan Health Lab.
Those factors are important in how dummies are created today. And as Americans age and grow heavier, the posable models are becoming varied in design to more closely match the population they emulate.
Wang said obese patients are "the rule rather than the exception," and a 2013 University of California, Berkeley, study found obese drives are up to 78 percent more likely to die in a crash. Heavy drivers tend to have more slack in their lap belts and can slide under easier during a crash, leading to more severe lower-body injuries.
Dummies designed to resemble elderly drivers have redesigned torsos and chests because the structure of the chest changes as people age and the risk of injury rises sharply, according to Wang.
"As the population changes, we must have test equipment that resembles consumers today," said Chris O'Connor, the CEO at Humanetics, which creates the dummies, including one that weighs 273 pounds.
"Our drive is the same as automakers': If fatalities get down to zero, that's our goal. So 35,000 vehicle fatalities in the U.S. is not acceptable to any of us. It's important for us to create a product that can be used to design safe cars."

An expert on car safety knew there was something wrong with the typical lean and featureless crash-test dummy.

Trauma surgeon Stewart Wang, M.D., director of the University of Michigan International Center for Automotive Medicine, told car safety engineers years ago the "dummies look nothing like my patients."

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"The condition, size and shape of an individual is hugely important in how severe their injuries are in any given crash," Wang told Michigan Health Lab.

Those factors are important in how dummies are created today. And as Americans age and grow heavier, the posable models are becoming varied in design to more closely match the population they emulate.

Wang said obese patients are "the rule rather than the exception," and a 2013 University of California, Berkeley, study found obese drives are up to 78 percent more likely to die in a crash. Heavy drivers tend to have more slack in their lap belts and can slide under easier during a crash, leading to more severe lower-body injuries.

Dummies designed to resemble elderly drivers have redesigned torsos and chests because the structure of the chest changes as people age and the risk of injury rises sharply, according to Wang.

"As the population changes, we must have test equipment that resembles consumers today," said Chris O'Connor, the CEO at Humanetics, which creates the dummies, including one that weighs 273 pounds.

"Our drive is the same as automakers': If fatalities get down to zero, that's our goal. So 35,000 vehicle fatalities in the U.S. is not acceptable to any of us. It's important for us to create a product that can be used to design safe cars."